Trashed: Some myths about
Iraq By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - A new study by a
Washington-based think tank has trashed American
and Iraqi government claims that foreign fighters
dominate the insurgency in Iraq.
The
report, which was brought out by the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an
independent think tank, says that foreign
militants - mainly from Algeria, Syria, Yemen,
Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia - account for less
than 10% of the estimated 30,000 insurgents in
Iraq.
"The pattern of detainments and
intelligence analysis indicates that the total
number of foreign volunteers is well below 10%,
and may well be closer to 4-6%," the study says.
The CSIS study refutes the claim made by
the Bush administration and perpetuated by the
Western mainstream
media that foreign fighters
make up a large proportion of the fighters in the
insurgency. The number of foreign fighters "pales
beside those for the Iraqis themselves", the study
notes.
The US government has repeatedly
drawn attention to the large component of foreign
fighters in the insurgency in Iraq to quash the
idea that Iraqis are rising up against its
military occupation of that country. President
George W Bush has often cited the presence of
"global terrorists" in Iraq to justify his
description of the US invasion and occupation of
Iraq as part of the "war against terror" and as a
reason for continued US military operations in
that country.
While the number of foreign
fighters in Iraq might pale in comparison to that
of Iraqi fighters, the impact of the former in
terms of violence has been far greater. Most of
the suicide attacks on the American and Iraqi
security forces and the attacks on Iraq's Shi'ite
majority have been carried out by the foreigners.
The CSIS study also disputes reports that
Saudis comprise the largest group of foreign
fighters. It says that of the estimated 3,000
foreign fighters in Iraq, Algerians are the
largest group (20%), followed by Syrians (18%),
Yemenis (17%), Sudanese (15%), Egyptians (13%),
Saudis (12%) and those from other states (5%).
"Analysts and government officials in the US and
Iraq have overstated the size of the foreign
element in the Iraqi insurgency, especially that
of the Saudi contingent," says the study, which
was carried out by Nawaf Obaidi, a Saudi security
adviser, and Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East
analyst at the CSIS. "Saudis seem to make up only
between 1-2% of the fighters currently operating
in the country."
The CSIS study’s
conclusion that Saudis form a small component of
the fighters is disputed by other studies. In his
March study of Arab fighters in Iraq, Reuven Paz
(director of the Project for the Research of
Islamist Movements - PRISM - at Herzliya, Israel)
pointed out that "the vast majority of the
volunteers that streamed into Iraq are Arabs", and
most of these are from Saudi Arabia. He describes
as "significant" the involvement of Saudis in the
Islamist insurgency in Iraq.
In his
analysis of 154 Arabs killed in Iraq in the
preceding six month, Paz found that 61% were from
Saudi Arabia. He also found that 70% of the
suicide bombers were Saudis. "The number of Saudis
killed in the past six months in Iraq [94] is too
large to be ignored. It strongly suggests the
Saudis' direct and active involvement both in the
insurgency battles as well as in terrorist
operations."
The proportion of Saudis
among the insurgents in general might be small but
their numbers among the Islamists in Iraq appear
to be high. Paz said that what is of concern about
the Saudi presence among the fighters is not just
their numbers but their influence. He told Asia
Times Online that one "should look not only at the
numbers but also at the quality of their [Saudi
fighters'] contribution to the insurgency, at
least the Islamist one. They bring with them more
radicalism. Saudis were among those who influenced
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to adopt Takfiri ideas [a
belief that sects that are not Wahhabi-based are
infidel and apostate] and increase the massive
attacks against Shi'ites, Sufis and Muslim
'infidel' Sunnis."
The CSIS study as well
as the PRISM study demolish another Bush
administration myth - that international
terrorists were streaming into Iraq, compelling
the US to occupy the country as part of its "war
on terror". Paz points out in his study that "the
vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq
have never taken part in any terrorist activity
prior to their arrival in Iraq".
"Only a
few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in
Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya." Out of the 154
fighters Paz analyzed, only a few had past links
with terrorism including six who "were sons of
Afghan alumni".
The CSIS report says that
85% of those interrogated were not on any watch
list of known terrorists. "The vast majority of
Saudi militants who entered Iraq were not
terrorist sympathizers before the war," the report
states. Most of the Saudi fighters were
"radicalized almost exclusively by the coalition
invasion ... Most of the Saudi militants were
motivated by revulsion at the idea of an Arab land
being occupied by a non-Arab country. These
feelings are intensified by the images of the
occupation they see on television and the Internet
... the catalyst most often cited [in
interrogations] is Abu Ghraib, though images from
Guantanamo Bay also feed into the pathology," the
CSIS study points out.
The occupation of
Arab land and the ill-treatment of Arabs
contributed to radicalization of Arabs in the
past. This radicalization is poised to witness a
surge. "Wait and see what is going to happen when
Saddam’s trial starts," Paz told Asia Times
Online. "They are going to view him in human eyes
as persecuted by the US, rather than judge him by
his past horrible image."
For the other
foreign fighters in Iraq - the US-led occupation
forces - the further radicalization of Arabs and
the surge in the flow of foreign fighters into
Iraq is bad news.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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